Allie,
Please forgive this note from someone you just met and were only briefly introduced to, but I think I would regret not telling you this.
You mentioned in your conversation with your friend Rachel today that you just turned 18 and that you had a baby when you were 16. You said you had given up your baby for adoption. You were surprisingly honest about the reasons behind your decision, among them not being prepared to care for a baby. And how you’re not close with your parents anymore because they didn’t want you to go through with the pregnancy.
Being on the fringe of the conversation anyway, I had to turn away as I was close to tears. About 7 years ago after a seemingly unending ride on the fertility doctor merry-go-round, I was coming to grips with the possibility that being a Dad may not be God’s plan for me. It was very hard.
On September 25, 2000 at the point of being physically, emotionally and financially drained we got a phone call from a stranger in Spokane, Washington. She knew my wife’s sister. She called to say she heard about a woman in her area who was pregnant with twins and was going to give them up for adoption.
It was such an impossible pipe dream that I got angry. We had a license to have a dog. But nothing that said we could foster parent, let alone be adoptive parents. Yet with a “we have no chance but I’ll write one anyway”, I emailed a biography to the family. In closing, I said, “Bottom line, we want these babies to be where God wants them to be. If it’s with us, we will be thrilled and humbled.”
On October 4th we met with a social work agency who agreed with us. There’s no way we’d have these babies because everyone else who wants them will already be certified to adopt. So we took an information packet and settled on the fact that it would take at least a year to get through the process.
Three days later on October 7th we got a call saying that the birth Mom had picked us. Seven couples wanted the babies. All of them were certified to adopt but us.
The babies’ due date was December 8th. Not much time but at least a couple months to try and get ready. Ten days after the call to say they picked us, I was sitting at a Sonic drive-thru waiting for my Cherry Flurry when my cell phone rang with a bizarre area code. It was the birth Mom’s sister. In a chipper voice she said, “Just wanted you to know my sister’s water broke. The babies will be born tonight. Can you get here?”
In the history of freakdom, no one has freaked out more than me in that moment. Six hours later we had my wife on a plane to Spokane. The babies were born the next morning. They were preemies, born seven and a half weeks early. Annie Quinn was 3 pounds 9 ounces and Emma Elizabeth was 3 pounds 14 ounces.
We went from zero kids to 2 kids in 23 days.
The entire experience has been like riding a wild tiger. You can’t steer and you can’t get off. It’s been the wildest adventure and only God could put it all together.
I share this with you because you need to know and understand as best you can that you, Allie, are a hero. You had a choice to make and you chose life. And even at your young age you made an extremely difficult and wise decision. You will never comprehend this side of heaven the difference you have made in the lives of countless people you will never meet.
Every person who is touched by your daughter’s life; by her smile, her laugh, her talents, her caring, her acts of kindness, and later the fruits of her labor in her chosen field; every person whose life is better because of your daughter….is better because you chose life.
There are no words to describe the joy and delight that my children bring to me. That I have the privilege of being their Dad, the privilege of watching them grow, is because their birth Mom chose life. My life is changed forever because of Annie and Emma. There are no words to describe the depth of that emotion, either.
I wanted you to know that in my mind you are ten feet tall. A hero. I am terribly proud of you. Thanks for making an incredibly wise decision. Even if you didn’t understand the consequences at the time, you have blessed the world by what you did.
Please accept these thoughts with my deepest respect.
God’s biggest blessings on your life –
Todd Thompson
“For you (God) created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, and my soul knows full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written down in your book before one of them came to be.”
– Psalm 139:13-16
Todd A. Thompson – April 3, 2007
